I made the decision recently to post or rather repost my old work from high school, the stuff I published to Fiction Press back in 2005-2007. Side by side with my 2021 work, I can see differences in my style, how I’ve developed as a writer over the decades. The way I write an intro chapter has changed.
As a teenager, I was a pantser – writing by the seat of my pants. Let the muses lead the way with a seed of inspiration that would grow at the speed of an atomic blast… and run out of steam after several chapters.
These days, I outline a lot more. The seeds of inspiration are still there, but I try to balance things out. Carry on enough writing fuel to reach the end without derailing the story into the ditch of writers block, or the pit of procrastination, or even the moat of miserable writing.
I suspect the first and succeeding books of Hunting the Rememberer will have vastly different tone and writing style when compared to each other.
That said… There are parts of my old work that still make me smile, and for that reason they will see the light of day outside of my manuscripts box. That box holds 36 projects – books, comics, animation scripts – all unfinished. And someday… Well, I have a lot of hope.
In the coming days, I plan to post the opening chapters to: 1) Hunting the Rememberer: Chimera Anamnesis; 2) Twenty-Eight; and 3) A Thousand and One Ways to Destroy the World. I’ve already posted SCRAMBLE, episode 1, devoid of character descriptions (which was riddled with spoilers in my draft). Of the four, SCRAMBLE was supposed to be filmed with my friends in Memphis in 2005… And now I hope to animate it, should funds eventually allow. It’s set in 2024, and it is so bewildering to find that the setting is nearer now than the year I wrote it.
My college friend’s success in ebook writing, and my own sudden availability of free time, push me away from that thorny perfectionism that prevented me from publishing for so long. Here’s hoping I find the right publisher, agent, or editor soon. 🙂 Here’s hoping.